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Topic: Azerite armor (Read 518 times)

The first glimpses of the azerite armor system have appeared on the alpha. The UI is placeholder and the traits are for a single piece of leveling gear, but I took away two things:

* Once you pick a trait, it doesn't look like you can change it.* There are role-specific trait options in most rows.

So players will probably want separate head, shoulder, and chest items for each role they use regularly, in addition to separate trinkets and in some cases weapons/offhands. Not really a huge burden compared to Legion's spec-specific artifact power pools and relics, but something to be aware of.

* There will be a respec system for azerite armor choices. It will have a ramping gold cost (with decay) to discourage per-encounter swapping, but an occasional respec to correct a mistake or to permanently change main spec should be economical. Players who regularly perform different roles in hard content will probably want separate head/shoulder/chest pieces. (Making spec-agnostic choices within each row is also an option, but may not be an attractive one.)

* Azerite power will be called artifact power, as it is in Legion. It just applies to a single artifact (the Heart of Azeroth).

* Right now you can't respec your armor, but I do believe the intention is to be able to eventually, the functionality is just not in beta yet.

* While leveling, you will still get non-Azerite pieces for Azerite slots most of the time from quests -- actual Azerite armor for those slots are rewards for 1. Doing in the Intro quests to unlock the Heart of Azeroth and travel to the new zones, 2. Finishing the main storyline in each zone. You can pick what slot you want each time, and Azerite armor doesn't seem to have secondary stats, so I filled out chest and head slots first.

* The leveling Azerite armors have three rows of traits. (The 275 piece you get from the beginning of questing unlocks its rows at AP levels 1, 2, and 3. The 300 pieces you get from finishing the main storyline in each zone unlocks rows at 2, 4, and 6 AP. I have 5 levels of AP as a freshly dinged 120.) The first row had three spec-specific options and one generic/multi-spec option. The second row had two survivability traits, and the third had one option which was a flat +5 item level increase. The bonuses will theoretically be better on dungeon and raid gear.

* For spec-specific rows, you are currently only able to select the generic trait or the trait for your current spec when choosing traits for your Azerite armor. Unclear if this will remain since the Azerite UI is a placeholder UI right now.

* The generic options in the spec specific rows seem pretty ok, at least compared to the spec-specific options you see on leveling gear.